In the 1950's a toy was mass-produced that was designed to core and shoot a portion of a potato (a slug) or any other semi-solid biodegradable object. Primarily known as the “Spud Gun”, this all-metal toy was very popular in its time with kids of all ages. Its basic principle was to core a small slug of the potato using the hollow round tip of the shooter. Then using a two-part plunger system it would compress ordinary air behind the slug and therefore propel the slug out of the gun in the direction aimed. This toy enjoyed wide popularity along with other shooting toys from that generation such as Rubber Band Guns, Sling Shots and BB Guns. In recent years, the “Spud Gun” has enjoyed a re-birth as the same basic toy only now manufactured in plastic and marketed as a “retro” toy in order to capture the memories of those who had them as kids and hopefully to be shared with a new generation of kids. This new generation of “Spud Gun” can easily be purchased at most novelty stores or through many Internet sites.
In general, the “Spud Gun” was effective in shooting the slug of the semi-solid biodegradable object. Unfortunately, the reality of the matter was that it did not perform very well because of a few inherent design flaws. There are three main flaws in the original design that needed to be addressed in order to make the “Spud Gun” a more effective shooter. The use of the Human hand to generate the necessary power to propel the slug is the first. This is followed by the inaccuracy of the shooter when trying to hit a target because the human hand is used to generate the needed energy to propel the slug and the method by which the shooter was loaded in order to seal enough air inside to propel the slug.
The primary source of power in the original design in order to compress the air pocket and propel the slug was the human hand. While the hand is a great source for power and readily available it is not a great tool when required to generate the needed energy to propel the slug with the design of the vintage “Spud Gun”. You just could not get very much power to propel the slug very far. The “Spud Gun” used the human hand in a squeezing motion to generate the power. This motion is used to compress an air pocket that has been sealed behind the slug inside the compression chamber. When enough pressure was generated the slug would pop out of the tip of the toy and be propelled in the desired direction. Unfortunately, you can only get so much force out of the hand with this motion. This group of muscle in the hand is not as strong or fast as other potential sources of energy.
Since the original shooter was made from two primary parts and since these parts were designed to be squeezed together it was very easy to reduce the size of the compression chamber while trying loading the projectile. Loading was accomplished by jamming the hollow tip of the shooter into the semi-solid biodegradable object and breaking of the core that was cut and wedged into the hollow tip of the shooter. The motion of jamming the tip into the semi-solid biodegradable object frequently results in the compression chamber inside the unit being reduced in size as the two main pieces of the shooter were pressed together in order to penetrate the skin of the semi-solid biodegradable object. Once the chamber had been compressed and the hollow tip of the shooter sealed by the cored semi-solid biodegradable projectile the gun was even harder to use because you no longer had as much air in the compression chamber to compress and therefore propel the slug. Because of this the gun had to be unloaded and extra effort had to be made while loading the shooter in order to keep the two halves from compressing while the slug was loaded. This was especially difficult for younger users of the toy as well as it hindered the efficiency of the toy.
The Last flaw was again related to the use of the Human hand for propulsion. The inherent “jerking” motion required to squeeze the human hand in a fast strong motion did not allow the hand to maintain a steady position and therefore an accurate aim. This jerking motion generally moved the tip of the shooter and changes the trajectory in which the projectile was intended to go. In order to maintain a steady aim while shooting you had to somehow maintain a smooth squeezing motion when trying to generate the most power from you hand. That was the only way to maximize the distance at which the projectile was launched while maintaining some sort of accurate aim. This inherently reduced the power generating by the hand and once again reduced the efficiency of the shooter.
All of these factors were compounded when the person using the toy was a child, as children generally do not have large strong hands that allow the user to compensate for these design flaws. Generally speaking, the best that these shooters could propel the semi-solid biodegradable slug is not much more then 15 feet.